Bloodrush: Growing Wings
by Mister Vix
Summary: Backstory for Bloodrush. He was 000, the first. And with his awakening, so began the ending of the times. So it was that Bass would soon be...growing wings.


Bloodrush: Growing Wings  
  
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Disclaimer: Megaman and Megaman-X series are not mine. Boo.  
  
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Author's Notes: This is a one-chapter backstory from my Bloodrush fic, which I have been meaning to write for a while. Huzzah!  
  
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The outside air was bitterly cold. A few flakes of snow drifted lazily in the air, but most of it had flattened itself on the empty ground, packing slowly on its way to becoming ice. The lone figure who trudged through the open field stood out starkly against the snow, covered for the most part in a baggy ebony coat, with a broad-brimmed hat perched on his head. He took no notice of the cold, focusing instead on his destination--a grand old building, home of the almost rediculously famous Dr. Light. Everyone knew about his amazing creation, the little robot Rock, better known as Megaman to the public. The most advanced robot ever created to date, he surprised everyone who met him with how humanlike he was.  
  
The figure who walked unhurriedly through the chill air would have surprised anyone who met him, as well. But extremely few ever got to know him...and lived to tell about it. He looked up slightly, his crimson eyes gleaming harshly in the wan winter light. His breath turned to thick fog as he exhaled, but he never once acknowledged the chill, even when it swept his concealing hat away, tousling his hair, a dark indigo-purple streaked with ink-black. He retrieved the lost article of cloth and put it back in its place without any hint of annoyance. His crimson eyes were vicious but dead, dangerous but lacking any sort of spark.  
  
He was Bass Forte Wily, the ultimate rival and equal of Megaman. He was a murder machine, a robot who specialized in dealing death. He could imitate human tendancies to every extent that Rock could, but he had no reason. He was a dark, frightening thing, and he preferred it that way, as much as he could prefer anything. Bass truly avoided gathering too much opinion on any one thing...  
  
Save for his creator. He knew he hated the wrinkled old man that had the gall to shove him around, to try and tell him what he already knew. He KNEW he had yet to defeat Rock--he wasn't an idiot, as Wily seemed think--and the old man telling him it over and over did nothing to solve that problem. Quite often, Bass was tempted to simply crush the white-haired fool, but he never acted on this desire. Not yet, at least...  
  
But Wily was pushing it again. Bass didn't really care about the cold--in fact, he preferred it, as he could go faster and longer with the extra chill in his systems--but his mission was a harsh one. Wily claimed to have caught wind of a knew project Light was working on--Bass had questioned what sources the scientist was receiving this information from and had earned himself a hefty blow from the nearest object, which had happened to be a lamp--and so had ordered Bass to sneak in and gather whatever he could on this. Never mind that Bass had never been intended for stealth--with a frame of 6'6" and heavy armor plating, he wasn't exactly small or slight--or that he didn't know anything of the layout of Light's lab, or even what he was supposed to be looking for.   
  
Still, despite the stupidity of it all and the likelyhood that this was just a wild goose chase, Bass had gone. He could have simply vanished off for a while, returned, and told Wily that there was nothing. He could have refused to go altogether, and dared the old man to try and make him. But there was one appealing thing about this mission...and that was the chance that it would end in another battle with Rock.  
  
Another one of the few things Bass had dared form an opinion on was Rock. He despised the black-haired midget of a robot, despised everything about him, from the way he continuously spouted nonsense about peace to the fact that Bass could never seem to beat him. Rock always seemed to win...and then never to kill his nemesis. That was another thing Bass hated. The Blue Bomber's weakness. He couldn't even destroy his own enemy, putting himself and his so-called "family" in danger just because he was too weak-stomached to finish Bass off. The Ebony Warrior couldn't tolerate such a pathetic fool.  
  
If this mission ended with no secret project and a fight with Rock...then Bass felt it would be justified. But the first order of business was getting into Light's lab undetected.  
  
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Rock was just hanging around the lab, as he tended to when not off fighting some maniac Robot Master and their underlings. He had, in fact, been drifting off to sleep when a loud crash snapped him fully alert, his hand automatically reaching beside him for his helmet which wasn't there. His armor was still being repaired from his last battle.  
  
Getting up and walking down the hall as quietly as he could, he blinked his bright eyes when he saw someone's shadow thrown across the floor, originating from a lighted room on the left side of the hall.   
  
Flattening himself against the wall, he peered through the doorway, trying not to be seen, and his eyes went wide when he saw the figure in the room. Bass had gotten into the lab!  
  
The warrior robot was hunting intently through a previously-locked filing cabinet. Apparently, the crash had come from when the unsubtle machine had put his fist through the cabinet in order to get at the contents. Rock turned and ran back the hall, trying very hard not to make much noise--though he doubted Bass would've heard him anyway. The machine was notoriously one-track minded, and his concentration was wholly absorbed in his search.  
  
Rock slid open the door to the repair room without knocking. Auto, his lamplike eyes goggling, swung around when he heard Rock step in. The Blue Bomber was wide-eyed.  
  
"Bass is in the lab! I need my armor!" he hissed, and Auto gathered it up from its place without a word. Rock donned the metal plates quickly, and then was back down the hall. This time he could do nothing for the loud ringing of his footsteps, but that didn't matter--Bass was going to know he was there soon enough.  
  
"BASS!" he shouted, throwing himself into the room, buster cannon already charging...and let his arm fall. The Ebony Warrior was already gone, leaving files strewn all about the floor. The curtains at the shattered window--Roll simply refused to allow the place to go without curtains--twitched slightly in the few faint breezes from the frozen air outside. Rock dashed to the window and leaned out, hunting quickly about, but Bass wasn't so stupid as to try and return to Wily's on foot--he was gone, whisked away by the wonders of teleportation. Rock sighed heavily, a white cloud of mist forming from his breath.   
  
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"WILY!" the ebony machine roared, throwing his annoying coat on the floor, revealing the gold-trimmed black armor which he never removed. "GET OVER HERE, WILY!"  
  
The old man appeared, his white labcoat stained and spotted, his hair an absolute mess. He had been working on his newest idea for a robot, a rather impressive one, or at least he thought so.  
  
"What is it, Bass?" he grated. "Did you find something?" Perhaps, had Bass been somewhat more humanlike than he was, he would have rolled his eyes and replied with something sarcastic. As it was, he simply thrust out a manilla folder, filled with papers. The old scientist snatched the folder and immidiately began flipping through thin pages covered in neat, precise script, his dark, narrow eyes growing steadily more excited.  
  
"Do you know what this is?!" he almost shouted, his voice breathless, as he shook the folder at Bass. The robot just stared at him, expression blank as always. Wily cackled. "This is perfect! The finishing touches on my newest creation! Perfect! Unbelievably perfect!" He rushed away, leaving Bass standing there like a dark statue. Finally, the machine moved, turning his head slightly to stare at the doorway through which his creator had rushed. Then, slowly, he walked into the room, leaning against the wall to watch Wily, the old man's fingers flying wildly across a keyboard, writing up some new program. He spared not a glance for the lifeless shell of metal that lay sprawled spread-eagle across the table, an incomplete figure which would soon become Wily's newest warrior. Had Bass not disliked having opinions the way he did, he probably wouldn't have thought much of this supposed superfighter. While tall, the figure was slight, and with his narrow face and thick mane of blonde hair, more feminine than Bass would've thought Wily would ever build anything. The old fool was steadfastly sexist, after all, firmly believing that men were far superior to women. Which was why he had never built a female-based robot.  
  
"So what, exactly, did I find?" he asked finally. He really had no curiousity whatsoever as to what had been in that folder, but he figured he may as well know what he had been going out to get. The old scientist glanced at him.  
  
"A completely new basis for robots...affording them more ingenuity and adaptability. It's called the Replicate Android Chip, shortened to 'reploid' chip. Once installed, the robot will be capable of thinking and feeling exactly as a human does--and be able to make his own decisions based on what he has learned, uninhibited by any stupid rules," he explained, while still focusing on his work. He stood up, apparently satisfied with what he had achieved there, and continued working on completeing the metal shell for the future "reploid," which consisted solely of sealing closed the chest compartment and making sure that the synthetic skin covering it was fitted well enough as to appear completely seamless. Then all that was left was to put in place the final, most crucial piece...the control chip, the "brain" of any robot. Once that was in place and active, the robot would awaken itself rather quickly.  
  
Bass, however, stopped the scientist before he could do so.  
  
"There was something about a testing period," he said plainly. Wily just waved his hand at the robot.  
  
"Light is an overcautious fool. I'm not waiting 30 years to see my masterpiece in action!" he snapped, and delicately implanted the chip deep in place in the metal skull, sealing it shut with a practiced deftness. However shoddy or outlandish his design ideas may have gotten at times, when it came to the actual building, Wily was definately a master. For all appearances, the robot laying in his awkward position on the table may have been a human--completely. When once Bass had given his creator an odd look for the man's insistence on making his robots complete in a way most people would concider indecent, the old sexist had raved at him how he wouldn't be making genderless freaks. Bass had dared form an opinion on that, too. He thought it was stupid.  
  
"What's his name?" Bass asked. Wily grinned.  
  
"He is the first of a new kind, both a new kind of machine and a new kind of reploid...he is #000...Zero," the old scientist cackled. Bass didn't even realize that it might seem like curiousity as he asked another question.  
  
"New kind of reploid?" Wily looked for a moment at the Ebony Warrior, somewhat surprised that the robot had asked so many questions already. Normally Bass didn't care enough about Wily's workings to know anything about them.  
  
"I changed him from Light's design," he said at last, deciding from the familiar blankness in Bass's eyes that the robot was not truly interested, only for some reason making conversation. "He will think differently, no matter what experiences he has...he will be a fighter, and have a taste for blood which will be unquenchable."  
  
"What are you calling this, then?" the machine asked, watching the first hints of existance on the reploid's face--oddly enough, the corners of Zero's mouth had twitched upwards into a strange smile. Wily just shrugged.  
  
"It doesn't have a name yet," he replied, before turning his full attention to his creation. His eyes were bright with excitement, and he was practically panting.  
  
It took twelve minutes--minutes which, to Wily, seemed to stretch out interminably--before the blonde slowly opened his eyes, blinking quickly and wincing at the bright light hanging overhead. He raised a hand to block the light from his sharply blue eyes, and pushed himself up, looking about. He opened his mouth, but apparently didn't know what to say.  
  
"Hello, Zero," Wily whispered. Zero stared at him for a long moment.  
  
"Z...ro?" he mumbled at last. Wily nodded ferverently.  
  
"That is your name," the old scientist said. His voice was thin and strained from excitement. "And I am Wily, your creator." Zero looked around slowly, his ocean-colored eyes taking in his surroundings. Then, finally noticing himself, his face turned something of a ruby shade as he drew up his legs.  
  
"Errr..." he mumbled, looking back and forth. Wily burst out laughing at this obvious proof that the Replicate Android Chip was a success--Zero was embarrased at being naked in front of a pair of people! Wily turned around and snatched the folded black undersuit from its place on a shelf. It was actually made of metal, but it was thin and almost silky, and highly absorbant of plasmic energy. He tossed it at Zero, who studied it without comprehension for a few moments before finding the seam and managing, after a bit of struggling with the slippery material, to pull it on, automatically tugging his blonde mane out of the way. Then, just now realizing what he had done, he ran a hand through his own hair curiously. There certainly was a LOT of it...  
  
"Why all this?" he asked then, looking over at Wily. The old scientist cackled slyly.  
  
"Appearances," he said. Zero gave him a confused look, but the old man clearly didn't intend to elaborate on his statement. Now, finally, Zero focused his attention on Bass.  
  
"Who're you, then?" he asked. Bass, who had barely moved since coming in the room, barely twitched his head as though to acknowledge he had heard Zero.  
  
"Bass," he said simply, his low, gravelly, monotone voice grating.   
  
"Bass was my greatest robot before you," Wily said. "But he has proved to be inadequate for his job..." Zero studied the Ebony Warrior for a long moment. What kind of a job could this imposing machine be unable to do?  
  
"What's his job?" the blonde questioned.  
  
"To destroy Megaman!"  
  
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Rock wasn't looking forward to storming madly into Wily's fortress, but he didn't exactly have a choice. Light had been frantic when he found out exactly what it was Bass had stolen--his culmanative research for that weird "reploid" project he had been working on for a while. He hadn't actually ordered Rock to do anything, but the Blue Bomber knew that his "father"--as he thought of the old man as--was depending on him. Apparently, whatever was in those papers was more than a bit dangerous.  
  
He tapped the side of his helmet, opening up a commlink between him and his accomplice for this mission.  
  
"Blues? You hear me?" he asked the open air softly, and, after a sharp crackle, his brother's voice came over the internal com, calm and cool as always.  
  
"Yeah," came the reply. "Ready and waiting. You storming the front?" Rock nodded, realized that Blues couldn't see him, being on the other side of the building as he was, and replied with a short affirmative. Then the charge was on.  
  
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Bass didn't even look up as the alarm went off, simply standing slowly and walking out of the room. Zero, on the other hand, clapped his hands over his ears and glared up at the speaker on the ceiling which blared loudly.  
  
"INTRUDER ALERT! SIGNATURES IDENTIFIED: MEGAMAN AND PROTOMAN!" the warning repeated itself over and over. Wily, a maniac grin on his wrinkled face, snatched up Zero's gleaming new armor. With quick-running instructions on how to get the armor on, he snapped all the plates into place, and finally handed Zero his helmet. However, Zero paused a moment before donning it, glancing about the room, until he finally found a strip of blue wiring, and used the impromptu tie to draw his hair back and out of the way into a tail. Then he slipped on the helmet and stood, his ocean blue eyes gleaming with excitement.  
  
"So I get to see if I can do Bass's job any better than him?" he asked, and Wily nodded sharply. Then Zero was off, rushing out of the room, his metal boots clanging loudly on the floor. Wily began laughing as he dashed up to the surveillence room.  
  
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Blues hadn't gotten very far when he suddenly found himself face to face with a midnight figure, which was already dashing forward, the gold-orange crests on his helmet gleaming fiercly, the hood of a black cobra. By the time Blues had raised his buster, Bass had already planted his boot firmly in the robot's middle, and kicked him backwards, sending him skidding across the floor. Blues recovered quickly and fired off three fast shots, two of which Bass sidestepped. The third struck him in the arm, but his blank crimson eyes showed no acknowledgement of any kind to pain. He raised his own buster cannon and began firing, and Blues just barely manuevered his shield to block. Then Bass leapt into the air, whistling sharply. Seemingly out of nowhere roared the wolf robot Treble, a streak of purple which curled himself up into a ball of metal. Bass's armor had already shifted itself into a strange-looking position, and the wolf was snapped smoothely into place, plates of metal spreading outwards into batlike wings, a burst of plasma fire from the jets set between them sending Bass higher into the air. Blues fired off four rapid shots, but Bass weaved around them expertly, and dove at the smaller robot.  
  
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For a number of minutes, Zero simply hung where he was, upside down on the ceiling, his feet hooked on the rungs of a ladder leading upwards. He was watching Megaman, who was still a ways up the hall and busy with a few robotic drones.  
  
"Yoo-hoo!" he called finally, and Megaman's gaze snapped up to him and widened. Zero grinned wickedly, before flipping off the ceiling, landing lightly on his feet. He grinned viciously, and sidestepped a shot from Mega's buster.  
  
"Who're you?" the Blue Bomber demanded. The blonde's grin remained unchanged as he walked slowly and calmly closer, seemingly uncaring of Megaman's buster, which was charging up steadily.   
  
"Just call me Zero," he laughed, and charged, twin plumes of plasmic fire bursting from the bottoms of his boots as he kicked on dash thrusters he hadn't even known he had. Megaman didn't even know he had been hit until he was suddenly colliding with the far wall, breath exploding from mechanical lungs, leaving him dizzy and his vision spotty. He shook his head and tried to focus, when he was dragged into the air, Zero's hand wrapped around his throat.  
  
"Bass couldn't beat you?" the crimson-armored figure cackled, shaking Rock back and forth amusedly. "He really must be pathetic. And here I am, just another pretty face." He laughed and tossed his head sharply, causing his hair to come undone and spill down his shoulders.   
  
"You...re...the...re...ploi...d..." Megaman gasped out, clawing at Zero's hand, trying to loosen the death grip the blonde had on him. Zero nodded, his grin fading to an odd smile.  
  
"Yeah," he said plainly. Then he frowned. "You know, this wasn't very much fun...I was expecting you to at least--" he was cut off when a fully-charged plasma shot from Rock's buster cannon was unleashed right in his face, throwing him backwards, losing his grip on the Blue Bomber's throat.  
  
"Arrogant jerk," Rock spat, his voice a harsh wheeze. He rubbed his half-crushed throat with one hand, keeping his buster trained on the reploid. Zero pushed himself slowly up, his eyes deadly.  
  
"That's more like it," he hissed, and flew at Megaman again.  
  
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The battle between Bass and Blues was turning into a stalemate. Bass, with his supreme manueverability, simply dodged all of Protoman's attacks, and Blues reflected all of Bass's with his shield.   
  
The Ebony Warrior charged straight at Blues, knocking him onto the ground, and slugged him across the face, knocking his helmet askew. A second blow shattered Protoman's precious sunglasses, and the robot responded by driving his knee up into Bass's midriff. While Bass showed no pain on his face, he did back away, watching Blues' pale, unmoving eyes. In the back of his mind, the calculating portion which commanded every movement, weighed in this new data--Blues, for whatever reason, was clearly blind, a rarity in robots but not an impossiblity. The truth of it was, Blues' blindness was the result of him being the first prototype created of his kind, when not everything had been exactly worked out. The cause, a faulty connection somewhere in his head, could not be repared without endangering his memory, or possibly his life.  
  
Blues took advantage of the momentary reprieve to thrust the barrel of his buster against Bass' chest and begin firing, driving him back. As soon as he had forced the warrior back far enough, he vanished, teleporting away.  
  
Blues did not want to act like a coward, but the truth was, his systems and armor could not take the punishment they were receiving. He had never been a very efficient fighter, and he was wearing out--those final shots had been the last he could make, and he had to let his weaponsystems recharge.  
  
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'Tactful retreat,' Rock repeated to himself, again and again. But that didn't change the fact that he had run away. He hadn't had a choice...but that didn't make him feel any better about it. It didn't matter that Zero had been taking apart piece at a time, and he could never have hoped to win.  
  
"Rock!" Roll cried when she saw the robot teleporting into the lab. He was a complete mess--his helmet was gone, revealing the ample amount of blood and fluids matting his black hair, his breastplate had been shredded, and his right arm was twisted unnaturally. He staggered, groaning, and toppled, Roll catching him before he could hit the floor.  
  
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Zero was quite amused as he ambled back up the hallway, not exactly knowing where he was going but not really caring. Without even being consciously aware of the act, he raised one of his bloodied hands to his face and began licking the tips of his fingers. He froze in place when the realization hit him of what he was doing, blinking down at his own hand...and then shrugged, and continued walking down the hall.  
  
"Hey, Bass," he said amusedly, spotting the ebony-armored robot. Bass glanced up at him briefly, his eyes flat, and continued shuffling down the hallway, trailing a muddy path of blood and fluid. The majority of it originated from a ragged tear in his undersuit, just under the grooved rim of his breastplate. A quick study told Zero that it was the only injury Bass had sustained that might be considered serious...but minor hurts could pile up as well, and make a condition worse. He followed the warrior from a distance, figuring that Bass would know where he was going. Zero certainly didn't.  
  
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Wily was in a curious temper. He was delighted at how easily Zero had subdued Megaman--the Blue Bomber had never stood any sort of a chance, even with Zero not using a weapon--but he was outraged that Bass had been damaged in his fight.   
  
"Useless scrap!" he spat at the robot, snatching a metal case of tools off a table. He would give that pathetic robot what he deserved! "You can't even take care of a blind antique anymore! You're worthless!" The Ebony Warrior stood impassively, no expression in his crimson eyes. He may have been a statue, had it not been for the slow but steady flow of red and black fluids from the jagged tear in his midriff. Zero watched all this in absolute silence, his expression slowly fading from its earlier cheer, turning much more serious, even dour. Why was Bass just letting Wily yell at him like that...?  
  
The blonde's eyes widened when Wily drew back his old arms and struck Bass across the face with the metal box, hard as he could. The robot just snapped his gaze straight ahead, gritting his teeth, and folded his arms across his chest. Wily hit him again, with no more effect than the first blow had had...except for when his feet suddenly left the floor.  
  
"What?! Zero! Put me down this instant!" the aged scientist screeched, flailing his arms. Zero, holding on to the collar of Wily's stained old lab coat, considered for a moment, his blue eyes smouldering dangerously, then tossed the scientist to the side. Wily hit the floor with a thud, and was up again almost immidiately, practically roaring with anger. Zero just looked at the old man as he lifted the metal box, prepared to strike the reploid.  
  
"...try it...I dare you..." Zero hissed, taking a step towards the old man. He held his arms out wide and smiled, his eyes harsh and bright. Wily changed his mind and let his arm drop, sighing, but there was a vengeful look in his shrewd old eyes.  
  
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Rock's expression was grim. It had been two days since his and Blues's ill-fated attack on Wily's fortress, and now Light was pacing about.  
  
"I can't believe it...I never would've thought Wily would be such a fool..." the old man muttered, hands folded behind his back, eyes glued to the floor in concentration. "He didn't even allow any testing period...there's no telling what that reploid could do. He's unstable, dangerous. He must be destroyed...before something happens...anything could knock him off-center, and then it'll only be a matter of time before he goes on a rampage..." Rock, watching the old scientist quietly, looked over towards the door leading to a seperate room. Behind that barrier of reinforced metal, a capsule sealed with a glasslike energy was set into a niche in the wall, its contents resting and waiting patiently for when, 30 years in the future, he would be awakened.  
  
"What about your reploid...? X? Couldn't you wake him up, set him on Zero, and then put him back to sleep again?" the Blue Bomber asked. Secretely, it was more than just that...Rock really wanted to get a chance to see X awake and aware. He was absolutely fascinated by the reploid who looked so much like him...and yet so different, at the same time. But Light shook his shaggy head slowly.  
  
"No, Rock. It's too dangerous. It only takes one disturbing event to unsettle an untested reploid...X would be just as unstable as Zero, and I won't risk it," he sighed. Rock frowned lopsidedly.  
  
"...what are we gonna do?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
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Zero proved to be easily bored. Unlike Bass, who could simply set himself down somewhere out of the way and do nothing for days on end, the reploid was constantly running all over the lab, hunting for new amusements. And so it was he found himself in an old storage room...  
  
"Hey, Bass!" he called cheerfully, digging the old camera out of the heap of mostly junk parts. It was a bit battered, and the lens was cracked, but wasn't completely destroyed. "Whattayasay t'makin' a movie?" The Ebony Warrior just gave him the usual blank look, which Zero completely ignored anyway.  
  
"I bet I could fix it..." he muttered, digging around in the piles of scrap. After a while of searching, he had uncovered an undamaged lense, and, cackling, he set to work.  
  
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Rock looked at the new upgrades uncertainly. They were supposed to enhance his Rush Armor...but he just didn't have confidence in them, done so rushedly as they had been. But he had no choice. Zero had to be destroyed before he started killing.  
  
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"See? I told you I could fix it. I can do ANYTHING!" Zero laughed. He held the camera as though unsure if it would hold together, then, noticing the blinking red light, grinned. "Hey! It's recording already! Smile for the camera, Bass!" He swung it around, shoving it in Bass's face, who stared back at the lense impassively.  
  
"Get it out of my face before I removed YOUR face," Bass said tonelessly. Zero just laughed at him, and when he didn't obey, Bass tried to snatch the camera from him. With a sharp yank Zero won the brief tug-o-war, laughing all the while.  
  
"I am the king of the camera!" he crowed, waving it about triumphantly. Bass folded his arms and looked like he didn't really care.  
  
"Just don't drag it all over the lab..." he instructed, without any real thought that Zero would listen to him. The blonde reploid, snickering wildly, proceeded to do just what Bass had told him NOT to, exploring the old building and making comments all the while.  
  
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"Are you ready, Rush?" Rock asked his canine companion. The mechanical dog yipped cheerfully, blissfully ignorant of the fact that he might very well not live to see the sun set. Rock sighed and wished he could be as carefree as his dog, then steeled himself as the hum of the teleporter came to life around him.  
  
"Fight, Megaman, for everlasting peace," Light said, deadly serious, uncaring that the tired old line seemed rediculous anymore. He had the horrible feeling that he would never again see Rock--never again see the robot who had become more than that, was almost like his child.  
  
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Zero had set the camera down in a place he deigned safe while he explored these lowest portions of the old lab. He doubted even Wily knew this old basement was here--the place didn't look too stable, and it was full of rats and things that hissed at the blonde whenever he stepped near them. He couldn't really see--apparently, Wily hadn't thought to give his creation nightvision--but that didn't stop him from his explorations. He did pause, however, when he thought he heard a heavy footstep.  
  
"...yello?" he asked the darkness, but the only response was the hollow reflection of his own voice. He shrugged. Must've just been his own footstep echoing back to him...then he went stiff when the footsteps started again. Echoes didn't do that.  
  
"Who's there?" he demanded. A low chuckle answered him, and he turned his head in the direction he thought it had come from. "Who are you? What're you doing down here?" No answer this time. The footsteps had gone silent. Zero stayed utterly quiet, tense and ready to spring in any direction, but nothing happened.  
  
Nothing until someone siezed him from behind, wrapping their arm around his neck, heaving him off the floor as though he weighed nothing. Gagging, he clawed at the metal arm encircling his throat, kicking out. His foot connected with something hard, something that rang like a gong, but whoever held him didn't even acknowledge it, just hissed another deep chuckle into his ear. Zero's struggles were beginning to weaken, and he didn't know why--something was sapping his strength, leaving him hanging, limp and powerless, in the stranger's strangling grasp. He could barely even draw breath into his lungs.  
  
"Call me Maverick," grated a low voice. Then Zero was dropped, sprawling across the floor, and already his strength began returning to him. The intruder was receding, their footsteps moving away.   
  
"You'll not remember this encounter...but you'll remember my name. Always you'll remember my name. It shall be your standard," they hissed, and then all sound was gone.  
  
Zero blinked uncomprehendingly at the darkness, standing slowly, trying to remember where he was. He staggered slightly, caught himself before he fell, and put a hand to the back of his head, blinking about.  
  
"...what...was I doing...here?"  
  
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Bass hadn't seen Zero for a while. The nut had gone running off with his new toy, and frankly, the Ebony Warrior could care less what the blonde fool was doing now. Could care less what anyone else in the building was doing, in fact. He was sitting in a small, out-of-the-way room, which he had at some point deigned his own for no real reason. He supposed he had to have somewhere he could fold himself up into whenever he didn't want to be bothered.  
  
Speaking of bothered...there were footsteps ringing down the hallway, and suddenly the door was yanked open. Zero stood there, staring in at Bass with a strange grin on his face. The red-eyed 'bot looked up at him from where he was seated on the floor.  
  
"What do you want?" he asked plainly. Zero's grin widened, and then Bass noticed the blood. It was spread all over his front, staining those rediculous green crystals the same crimson as the metal, and all over Zero's hands. "...what's going on?"  
  
"Wily's dead," Zero said plainly. His voice sounded on the brink of hysterical, lunatic laughter. "I killed him. Wily wasn't any good anymore, d'you know what I mean? Just a human, and human's aren't no good anymore..." His grin was toxic. Bass stood slowly, took a step back. Zero was brain-addled, that much was obvious, and there was no way of telling if he'd strike out or not.  
  
"...whatever you say," Bass muttered finally. But Zero's expression snapped to mad rage as though he'd just been seriously insulted.  
  
"You!" he spat, "You're a cowardly old pot of gears aren't you?!" He didn't wait for Bass to respond. He lunged at the Ebony Warrior, tackling him the ground, wrapped a hand around Bass's throat, and dug his fingers in. He laughed madly and ripped his hand back, synthskin and metal and fluids coming free as he did so, and whatever Bass had intended to say was choked into an unintelligable gargling. His red eyes locked with Zero's blue, and suddenly those blank orbs were baleful, burning. And then, just as quickly as that, the fire went out, and so did Bass. Zero stood, staring at the metal shell on the floor, and then walked away. He would deal with it later...maybe leave it on the bottom of some ocean somewhere...  
  
______________________  
  
Rock knew something was wrong the moment he stepped into Wily's fortress. The guards hadn't been set. He could just walk through, free as could be, and not a thing would bother him. The splits in the floor, where normally it would have sprung open to reveal a pit ending with jagged spines meant to tear him into little pieces, remained sealed tight. The turrets on the wall, seeming ready at any second to pop open and reveal plasma-spitting guns, were unresponsive. Something was very...very...  
  
"Oh..." he didn't even get to finish whatever he meant to say when he found Wily's shattered form, drenching everything surrounding it with blood. Rush whimpered at the sight. "What...happened... Zero." There was no doubt in his mind. Zero had snapped, just like Light had feared he would.  
  
"Yes, Zero," cackled a wicked, smooth voice. The blonde-haired reploid stepped out from the shadowy corridor in the back of the room, his front stained with slowly drying blood, his hands coated with what were undoubtably robotic fluids, mingled red and black.  
  
"...you're a monster," Rock hissed, and, pulling up his buster, he fired. Zero stepped out of the way of the shot easily, his eyes--eyes of a mad, frozen blue--locked onto Megaman's own. Then he grinned. It was a grin of death.  
  
"Rush!" Rock cried as the reploid began to charge, leaping into the air. The robot dog, programmed to respond, followed his master upwards, rolling and folding over in odd ways, until he connected--then Rock's armor, obeying its programming, assimilated the canine and changed, shifting into a new form. But the combining had taken too long, and Zero was upon him, pulling him down, beating him into the ground, kicking him over and over again, each vicious blow putting a sizeable dent in the Blue Bomber's armor. He never even gave Rock a chance to fight back, falling upon him like a wild beast, tearing at him, punching him, kicking him, ripping the little robot to pieces. The whole ordeal lasted only five minutes--five minutes throughout which Megaman, the hero of his time, found himself screaming in a tortured voice, unable to stop, unable to fight back. And then Zero stopped, standing and staring down at his own handiwork with a very strange expression. Rock, sense evading him as the last of his life slipped away, spoke the only phrase which his broken mind could recall;  
  
"Fight...Megaman...for everlasting peace..." and Rock was gone.  
  
______________________  
  
Light knew already the winds of death were howling at his door. He didn't need the computer's shrieked warning that there was an intruder in the base. Rock had been killed, and now Zero was coming after him.  
  
"X is all hidden," Roll said. "There's no possible way Zero could find him." Light nodded sadly.  
  
"I guess...this is goodbye, Roll..."  
  
"Goodbye...Papa..." 


End file.
